During the end of my career as a sixth
grade teacher I decided to educate my male students in the arts of romance. Not
that I was such a great Romeo, but that I was old enough to have made and
reflected upon most of the mistakes it is possible to make in this arena.

Poetry has always
been the language of love, so I of course thought to use a poem to open the door
to the conversation. I asked the boys in my class: “If you are talking to a girl
you are interested in, do you think she’d rather hear your latest Nintendo high
scores, or the words of the Chilean Nobelist, Pablo Neruda ?

I
will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,

Dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I
want

to
do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

The response was
inevitably the same. Lots of wrinkled brows, a few hmmms, whispers from the
girls, “Cherry trees! Cherry trees!”, and finally their answer: “Nintendo.”

Poets are shaped
by experience, and these young men must learn their lessons like I did, and
Neruda before me. And some future day, when they too have hopefully blossomed,
their poems may express what life has taught to them.